Even with original co-author Hampton Fancher onboard and star Harrison Ford back as Rick Deckard; Ryan Gosling as an intriguing new character, Officer K; and Canadian director Denis Villeneuve (Sicario, Arrival) and brilliant cinematographer Roger Deakins at the controls.

The visuals of the first film were a landmark in how they reinvented Hollywood’s approach to cinema, while the concepts of Fancher and David Peoples’ screenplay (itself an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) raised philosophical questions that filmgoers hadn’t exited a movie theatre thinking about before.

So a sequel? The chances of success, as Villeneuve himself said earlier this year, were very “narrow.”

But Blade Runner 2049 does what very few sequels can accomplish: it deepens our appreciation of its predecessor, while carving out its own niche in the spaces of our own imaginations. And the visuals it paints are in a word: breathtaking.

The new Blade Runner doesn’t try to replicate the notes and beats of Scott’s original; it presents new ideas that complement and enhance the talking points of the first film. But its concepts are unique and will satisfy newcomers unfamiliar with the first film.

When Blade Runner 2049 opens, we meet Gosling’s K, a “blade runner” with the LAPD who is charged with retiring older model replicants with open-ended lifespans. The Nexus 8 models have been replaced by the controllable Nexus 9 series. And right from the outset, Villeneuve’s opening shots linger on a smoggy and snow-filled Los Angeles, giving the film a different hue than the flame bursts that greeted our eyes in 1982. (Do yourself a favour and see it on the biggest screen possible.)

After their confrontation, K unearths a mystery, one that his boss, police lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright), orders him to destroy. Puzzled by his discovery, K disobeys and embarks down a path that ties in with characters from the original film, including Deckard, as well as the mysterious scientist Niander Wallace (a bearded Jared Leto), who created the new androids. Wallace — who refers to replicants as his “angels” — has almost perfected the technology, but he’s seeking to create a synthetic human with the power to reproduce.

To say more about the avenues the story travels, or why K tracks down Deckard, who fled into an uncertain future with his replicant girlfriend Rachael (Sean Young) at the end of original, would venture into spoiler territory, and will ruin the experience of unravelling all the joys of Blade Runner 2049. Suffice it to say, the plotting is generous and Villeneuve takes his time steering us to its conclusion.

Because of this, Fancher and Green are able to add a deep roster of secondary characters, all with their own motivations and well thought out backstories. Joi (Cuban actress Ana de Armas) is a new type of AI, one that is programmed to be a submissive, but who clearly has her own ideas of what it means to be human. Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) is Wallace’s ruthless assistant who clearly struggles to maintain an emotional detachment to her bloody work. Joshi is brutally by the book, but there are cracks in her regimented way of looking at the world. Sapper doesn’t get much screen time, but it’s heartbreaking to think about how long and far he’s run to protect his secret.

And, as a bonus, we get to see a hologram Elvis and Sinatra along the way.

An existential questioning of what it means to be a human being, with the replicants of the year 2049 seeming to possess a better understanding of traits like love and compassion will leave moviegoers pondering the ideas of creation and whether machines, too, can have souls.

The original Blade Runner offered up some of the most impressive visuals ever seen on screen, and Villeneuve manages to reimagine what our world might look like in 2049 in a way that presents something fresh, but equally dark and enthralling (particularly the glowing orangey haze that envelops Las Vegas). Add to that a haunting soundtrack from Hans Zimmer (Inception, the Dark Knight trilogy) and Benjamin Wallfisch that seeps under your skin and you have a cinematic experience unlike any other you’ll encounter this year.

The film does run slightly long, and some scenes, particular ones with Leto’s Wallace, could have been trimmed. But a movie this thought-provoking needs space in which to move and flush out its concepts, so these are minor quibbles.

The best part of Blade Runner 2049 is that while it sews up some plot points from the first film, it leaves us puzzling over others that will keep us talking for another 35 years.

The perfect outcome for a follow-up to a sci-fi classic and I can’t wait to see it again. And again.